Crisis Blog 2: Chris Brown and Rihanna

The night before the famous Grammy Awards, Chris Brown and Rihanna were involved is an extremely violent situation. The reason this is viewed as a crisis is because of the prominence that both of these individuals possess. Chris Brown allegedly attacked his girlfriend, Rihanna repeatedly on a small side street. A woman overheard the altercation on the street and called local authorities. By the time Los Angeles Police Department showed up on the site, Chris Brown had left the scene. Because the next night was the Grammy Awards, both performers did not attend the award show. At the last minute, different performers had to be contacted to take the place of Chris Brown and Rihanna. There were numerous days that went by and Chris Brown remained silent on the topic of this altercation that took place. After that long period time, this is the statement that was released to the media:

“Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired. I am seeking the counseling of my pastor, my mother and other loved ones and I am committed, with God’s help, to emerging a better person. Much of what has been speculated or reported on blogs and/or reported in the media is wrong. While I would like to be able to talk about this more, until the legal issues are resolved, this is all I can say except that I have not written any messages or made any posts to Facebook, on blogs or any place else. Those posts or writings under my name are frauds.”

I believe his statement is sincere. But because such a large period of time passed by without any statement by Chris Brown, the public looked down on him for this. Within a crisis situation, I have been told by my professors that you have 24 hours to react to a crisis. I am sure that the public already had a bad image of Chris Brown in their minds because they heard about what he did to Rihanna, but because his statement was released at such a later date, the public continued to think he was irresponsible.